Even though there were nearly 800 million credit and debit cards in circulation in Japan at the end of 2007, making it one of the top countries in payment card penetration, usage of these cards is quite low. A new report from Maynard, Mass.-based Mercator Advisory Group shows that Japan is still a cash-centric society, […]

GlobalPlatform released an HTTP remote application management framework. This new technology represents GlobalPlatform’s first advancement towards Internet connectivity as it offers an application provider with the ability to issue commands using the HTTP Internet communication protocol. This latest amendment (Amendment B) to GlobalPlatform Card Specification v2.2 aims to align GlobalPlatform smart card technology with Web […]

Visa is moving ahead with its plans to link some financial applications to Google’s Android operating system, according to American Banker. Initially, it would enable customers to manage their credit and debit cards with their mobile phones. Even though the Visa Mobile for Android application lacks payment capabilities, it does indicate that the credit card […]

Litle & Co., a payment management platform for merchants in direct-to-consumer commerce, has named a former MasterCard executive to its newly-created position of “payments evangelist.” Tom Pouliot’s goal will be to educate employees and merchants while also serving as briefings executive on the payments industry-at-large, market trends, issues and competitive positioning. Pouliot has served the […]

By Doug Yeager, Founder, Elemental Knowledge Inc. I was recently involved in a project that involved the integration of contactless readers for grocery stores. The role of Elemental Knowledge in the project was to design and develop a reader that could accept contactless loyalty cards. We were able to satisfy the customer in a number […]

NFC’s slow development could cause it to lag behind other mobile payment solutions for at least six years, according to New York-based ABI Research’s latest report. In the mean time, the study notes, three existing technologies–text messaging, mobile Internet and downloadable mobile applications–have the potential to deliver what NFC so far has not. “About half […]

Three French telecom operators–Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom have–have joined with eight retailers in the country to create a “working group” dedicated to standardizing NFC use in mobile phones. Called the Ergosum Project, its aim is to foster a contactless mobile payments systems at the point of sale. The group wants contactless payments systems that […]